This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: BBC
July 13, 2010
A bid to revamp a memorial in Surrey to Jack Phillips, chief telegraphist on the Titanic, has moved forward.
Waverley council said it had received initial support in a bid for funds to restore the Grade II-listed Phillips Memorial Cloister and improve the park.
The Godalming memorial, built in 1914, is said to be the largest of any built to remember a single Titanic victim.
The council wants to restore the memorial in time for the 2012 centenary of the sink
Source: AP
July 13, 2010
President Barack Obama is trying to bring home some of the much-lauded strategies his predecessor used to fight AIDS around the world.
The national strategy for combatting HIV and AIDS the Obama administration released Tuesday credits the Bush-era international campaign against AIDS for setting clear targets and ensuring a variety of agencies and groups worked together smoothly to achieve them.
George W. Bush launched the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or P
Source: CNN
December 31, 2069
New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission will hold a hearing Tuesday to decide whether a century-old building near ground zero is worth preserving.
The hearing is expected to be contentious because if the commission rules the building is not worth landmarking, it will pave the way for a mosque and community center that has been planned there.
Earlier this month, a community board said the 157-year-old building at the site wasn't architecturally significant enough to
Source: sifyNews
July 11, 2010
From three metres 25 years ago, the length of the 'chadar' offered by the devout at the annual Shah Jahan Urs in the Taj Mahal has increased to 450 metres this time. The number of faithful has risen from a dozen to nearly 100,000.
With thousands freely entering the majestic Taj Mahal for the three-day Urs celebrations that end Sunday, questions are being raised over the security of the white marble wonder that thousands come to see from all over the world.
This year, f
Source: Boston Globe
July 11, 2010
In a political about-face, a South Korean commission investigating a century of human rights abuses has ruled that the U.S. military's large-scale killing of refugees during the Korean War, in case after case, arose out of military necessity.
Shutting down the inquiry into South Korea's hidden history, the commission also will leave unexplored scores of suspected mass graves believed to hold remains of tens of thousands of South Korean political detainees summarily executed by their
Source: WaPo
July 12, 2010
In the month since Army investigators found hundreds of discrepancies between grave sites and burial records at Arlington National Cemetery, two very different worlds have emerged inside the gates of the Washington area's most venerated cemetery.
For the public, little has changed. Each weekday morning, solemn burials begin in far-flung corners of Arlington -- spread out so that one grieving family won't encounter another. By midday, a constant stream of sweltering tourists treks up
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
July 7, 2010
...All this leads one to ask the question that has vexed historians since 1945: why didn't Hitler use chemical weapons against the Allies? After all, he had shown no qualms against using gas on Jewish men, women and children, so why not against enemy troops as well?...
But now a startling new explanation has come to light. According to Frank J. Dinan, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York State, a scientist close to Hitler e
Source: Copenhagen Post (DK)
July 9, 2010
When archaeologists from the National Museum discovered the foundations of a small building at Bispegård on the island of Samsø, they did not realise initially that they had uncovered the remains of a castle that had belonged to a medieval king.
The discovery of the castle of King Erik Menved, who reigned between 1287 and 1319, helps to fill in a hundred-year gap in the island’s history, according to Nils Engberg, head of the National Museum, and the person who headed the dig....
Source: Ottawa Citizen
July 8, 2010
An obscure language in Siberia has similarities to languages in North America, which might reshape history, writes Randy Boswell.
A new book by leading linguists has bolstered a controversial theory that the language of Canada's Dene Nation is rooted in an ancient Asian tongue spoken today by only a few hundred people in Western Siberia.
The landmark discovery, initially proposed two years ago by U.S. researcher Edward Vajda, represents the only known link between any O
Source: Heritage-Key.com
July 8, 2010
Today archaeologists believe that the “Tunit,” who are mentioned in Inuit stories, flourished in the arctic during ancient times, vanishing around the 14th century AD.
Archaeologists first encountered their remains in 1925 at a place called Cape Dorset on Baffin Island. They gave them the name “Dorset culture,” a term that is still used today.
The Dorset developed special technologies that allowed them to survive in the harsh arctic environment. They used harpoons and
Source: AP
July 12, 2010
The teams participating in the World Lacrosse Championships in England represent 30 nations, from Argentina to Latvia to South Korea to Iroquois.
The Iroquois helped invent lacrosse and, in a rare example of international recognition of American Indian sovereignty, they participate at every tournament as a separate nation. But they might not be at this year's world championship tournament because of a dispute over the validity of their passports.
The 23 players have pas
Source: NYT
July 12, 2010
...BP was born in 1908 when a rich Englishman named William Knox D’Arcy struck oil in Iran and formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Treating the locals as little more than imperial subjects, the company, partly owned by the British government, expanded across the region, its fortunes intertwined with those of the British Empire.
But as oil-rich countries around the world began nationalizing their oil fields, British Petroleum, as it later became known, was forced to retreat and fin
Source: BBC
July 12, 2010
Archaeologists are calling for volunteers to help unearth the secrets of a historic site in Aberdeen.
Tullos Hill has long been known as an important archaeological site because four Bronze Age burial cairns are located there.
But interest was renewed several years ago when a survey revealed new historic and archaeological features.
Archaeologists now want the public to help search for artefacts which reveal more of the hill's intriguing past.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 12, 2010
The remains of 19th-century Aboriginal warrior Yagan have been laid to rest in western Australia, nearly 180 years after he was killed and his severed head was displayed in a British museum.
The private ceremony held by the Noongar tribe coincided with the opening of the Yagan Memorial Park in Swan Valley, just outside of Perth in Western Australia.
Yagan was shot by a European settler in 1833. His body was believed to be buried in Swan Valley but his head was taken to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 12, 2010
The imam of the main mosque in Saddam Hussein's former stronghold Tikrit has been arrested for spray-painting the late dictator's name on the mosque.
The imam, a former Iraqi soldier under Saddam, was arrested on Thursday on the street outside his home and taken to police headquarters, his family said.
Erected as the Great Saddam Mosque in 2002, the imposing building was renamed the Great Tikrit Mosque after the former president was ousted following the 2003 US-led inv
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 12, 2010
A tiny clay fragment dating from the 14th century BC, which was discovered outside Jerusalem's Old City walls, contains the oldest written document found in the city, researchers say.
The 3,350-year-old clay fragment was uncovered during sifting of fill excavated from beneath a 10th century BC tower, dating from the period of King Solomon in an area near the southern wall of the Old City, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said today in an emailed statement. Details of the find app
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 12, 2010
Life on Earth suffers catastrophic extinctions every 27 million years, according to researchers.
For at least the last 500 million years, say Adrian Melott, an astrophysicist at the University of Kansas, and Richard Bambach, a palaeontologist at the Smithsonian Institute, there has been a burst of extinctions every 27 million years.
Periodic mass extinctions have been posited before, and it has been suggested that it means the Sun has a huge, dark neighbour which orbi
Source: AP
July 12, 2010
The International Criminal Court on Monday charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with three counts of genocide in Darfur, a move that will pile further diplomatic pressure on his isolated regime.
The decision marked the first time the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal has issued genocide charges.
An arrest warrant for al-Bashir said there were "reasonable grounds to believe" that since April 2003 Sudanese forces attempted genocide against the Dar
Source: CNN
July 12, 2010
The United States is pushing for what would become nuclear wars against Iran and North Korea, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in a rare televised interview Monday.
Castro blamed the United States, not North Korea, for the sinking of a South Korean ship that killed 46 sailors. The incident was orchestrated to stir conflict in the region, Castro said.
The former Cuban leader, who is 83, said he was disappointed that China and Russia didn't veto a U.N. Security Counc
Source: CNN
July 12, 2010
The remains of a U.S. soldier missing for nearly 92 years were laid to rest Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, with military honors for an Army private who died in a World War I skirmish in France.
Pvt. Thomas Costello was buried with honors including a casket team, a firing party that fired three volleys and a bugler who sounded taps. His grave is not far from the grave of World War I Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. Soldiers from the Army's 3rd U.S. Infantry Regi
